Chaotic scenes as Fermanagh school children left on the side of the road without a bus service as Ulsterbus schools’ contract is not brought forward to cover August reopening

Drivers express concerns that they have been instructed to refuse fare-paying passengers on bus routes from next Tuesday

Stormont Executive must commit to return of suspended bus services and end cuts agenda which is impacting bus provision across Fermanagh and Tyrone

Cross-community Labour councillor Donal O’Cofaigh expressed his disgust at the fact that children in Fermanagh were left without any way to get to school on their first day back.

“Children who were meant to have a first day at school today were left on the side of the road after the bus they were expecting simply didn’t show. I contacted several bus drivers to find out the story and they confirmed that services weren’t operating as the Ulsterbus schools contract only starts at the beginning of September and hadn’t been brought forward. In other areas of Northern Ireland, I understand school children were charged to go to school on operating Ulsterbus services.

“This is a totally shambolic situation – children’s education and safety have been impacted. Let’s call out what happened here – Ministers in the Stormont Executive thought that children being left without any form of transport to school, on a timetable for reopening that they themselves set, was a price worth paying in order to cut public transport budgets.”

What is happening to Fermanagh’s economy?

The Lough Erne Resort Site

The recent announcement that the Castlehume-based, Lough Erne 5-star Luxury Hotel and Golf-course was being forced into administration due to the unsustainable debts which the owners had built up represents the latest in a string of blows to the local economy. This comes on the back of the transfer of both Quinn Insurance and the Quinn Group Ltd out of the hands of the Quinn family – both of which are likely to herald large-scale redundancies as new owners seek to ‘restructure’ their holdings to optimise profit-levels.



Last year a survey identified that one quarter of all local businesses anticipated that they would lose staff in the next two years and a further one in every eight local businesses did not know whether they would survive the same period. Unemployment in Enniskillen has doubled over the past three years and in some peripheral villages (with higher dependency on the construction sector), the unemployment rate has trebled. The very viability of the current societal structure of this county is threatened as never before.

What is behind the collapse?

The collapse in Fermanagh reflects that of the economy of the Republic of Ireland. Very many local people found work on building sites in Cavan, Leitrim, Monaghan and Donegal – some even commuted to work in Dublin and even further afield. When the bubble in the property sector in the south collapsed, some sought to continue working in the building trade in Belfast and elsewhere in the east of Northern Ireland before the property sector collapsed up north as well.

To some extent, the boom was exacerbated by the low interest rates offered by the euro at a time when the economies of central Europe were stuttering and the ECB’s priorities were to get these big economies growing. But there was clearly competition between banks to expand their loan book by offering ever more generous terms of credit – terms which were clearly unsustainable in the medium-term – and this built up a huge liability. Of course, governments in both London and Dublin decided that the banks had to be saved and that the working class would have to pay the price of this enormous bailout by higher taxation and massive cuts to public expenditure.

In Fermanagh, this agenda – agreed upon by all Assembly parties – has meant an onslaught on future public expenditure budgets. Although the impact of these cuts has been covered up ahead of the Assembly elections of May this year, it is clear that they will further devastate local public services and further pressurise the local economy.

Market Failure

What is happening to our economy is what the neo-liberal economists would term market failure but the reality is that the logic of what is happening is inherent in capitalism itself.

Capitalism has the capacity to generate considerable growth and spur technological development. The reason it is capable of these outcomes (we are not discussing its negative features), is that it is based on the self-regulating market mechanism. The theory of this is that the market allocates investment to those sectors and segments of the economy where profit is maximised. The idea is that this results in a growth in supply in those sectors which optimising net growth in the economy. One consequence is that this reduces the overall level of profitability in that sector or segment of the economy and that eventually reduces investment as it flows to some other ‘high profit’ sector. The idea is that the economy self-regulates always channelling growth to those sectors which offer the most at any point in time. Now while socialists have made a devastating criticism of this mechanism – it still characterises capitalism and its operation is central to how the global economy works today.

In the case of Ireland, the financial markets are unhappy with the profits to be made here – they are higher elsewhere – so it pulls out demand from our economy and we suffer stagnation or in the specific case  of Fermanagh a massive collapse. The idea is that as workers are thrown into unemployment they will either move to places where growth is occurring e.g. Australia or Germany which will reduce the costs for their industry (and further increase profits in the short-term) or else they will stay on here and accept lower and lower pay for work (if they can find it).

The impact on public services has a similar effect. As the economy contracts, there is a fiscal deficit and this becomes an argument for privatising the remaining public assets and massively cutting back on the standards and costs of public sector provision. From the perspective of the financial markets, if they can effectively implement this, it will have the added bonus of further reducing public sector wages which will enable them to more effectively reduce those across the economy.

The unavoidable conclusion in terms of Fermanagh’s future is that our wages, which are already low by comparison to even those of Northern Ireland (75% according to the latest Labour Force Survey) must fall further. The surplus of our labour force (which is basically anyone currently unemployed and everyone leaving school over the next ten years) must leave the county – further depressing local economic demand and resulting in an even further contraction. Meanwhile, our local public services will be decimated with the agreement of all Assembly parties.

The Socialist Alternative

This economic context makes the case for a socialist alternative. We need to develop our economy on the basis of an alternative, publicly-owned (and not profit-driven) model. Only if we prevent the market mechanism’s imperative can Fermanagh sustain our people.

As a move towards this, we need to reverse all cuts to public services and instead invest in a large scale scheme of public works that will actually provide employment for people (and provide a stimulus to the local economy). To achieve this we need to build a social movement transcending the divisions of our society rooted in working class communities that will demand an end to the market dictatorship.

Assembly Cuts Agenda will Devastate Fermanagh

This is a full, unedited version of the letter that was submitted to both the Fermanagh Herald and Impartial Reporter (and which has been published in both).

Northern Ireland Ministers - Agreed on Need for Devastating Cuts

The cuts outlined in the draft Executive Budget and agreed by all the Assembly Parties will devastate Fermanagh and have particularly severe consequences for deprived communities, those who have lost their jobs or forced to work part-time. Yet the same politicians who have signed off on these cuts will feel no qualms about canvassing the communities that these cuts target in the weeks to come.

The Assembly parties realise that their cuts are simply unjustifiable and that is why this draft budget fails to identify what specific actions will be necessary to deliver it. They are trying to get through these elections before people know what is happening.

There is an alternative to these cuts. The Assembly could agree a ‘needs-based’ budget and work with the Stop the Cuts Campaign, local communities and the trade union movement to build opposition to the neo-Thatcherite agenda. There is plenty of wealth in society – it is estimated that £120 billion escapes the tax net through avoidance, evasion and loopholes. Billions are wasted year on year on nuclear deterrents and invading countries like Iraq and Afghanistan; billions more have been paid to bankers, bondholders and property speculators. Yet when it comes to basic services for ordinary people they tell us that the money is not there.

Martin McGuinness shares a joke with David Camerson

A QUB Professor has estimated that these cuts will result in 38,000 job losses across the north. How is this supposed to help improve our economy and improve fiscal receipts? They will undermine not just the public sector but suck the lifeblood from small businesses and the private sector. These cuts only benefit the financial speculators and spivs of the stock-market.

These cuts will devastate the economy of Fermanagh which is already on the precipice. Across Fermanagh, communities face mass youth emigration, those who remain face a stagnant labour market and ever decreasing benefits. The viability of our schools will be ‘reviewed’ once again and more young students will be excluded from higher education. Our elderly will face even greater hardships as they struggle to obtain care services, being pushed to expensive private sector provision. Despite the denials of the Health Trust, these cuts are a sword of Damocles hanging over the public-sector status of the new Southwest Hospital. All our politicians can offer is verbal opposition to cuts while they administrate them in reality regardless of the cost.

Instead of implementing Tory cuts, our politicians should be building opposition to them alongside the community. We need to unite all those affected by these cuts not fall back to the politics of sectarian division. If history teaches us anything it is that only when people are united and campaign effectively that real change can be achieved. One has only to look at the inspirational protests in Egypt to see what real democracy looks like.

Irish Workers Protesting Cuts

We can fight and win against these cuts. Part of that is working to build a wider opposition bringing together trade unionists, community activists and those directly affected by the cuts; another part is to use these elections to elect genuine campaigners to fight the Assembly parties’ cuts, not implement them.

The Socialist Alternative to the Cuts!

By Cllr Mick Barry, Cork

The capitalist media say that there is no alternative to the thrust of the economic policies being advanced by the government, the EU and the IMF.  This is completely untrue. There is an alternative - a socialist alternative. Here socialistparty.net puts it forward in the form of a ten-point programme.

 

Shut down Anglo Irish Bank

The bailout of Anglo Irish Bank is set to cost the taxpayer between €29.3 billion and €34.3 billion according to the Government and up to €40 billion according to some economists. The bank should be closed down immediately and the losses should be taken by bondholders, private banks who lent to Anglo and wealthy depositors.  The same applies to the Irish Nationwide Building Society.

 

Nationalise the banks under the democratic control of working people

AIB, Bank of Ireland and other banks should be nationalised.  The banks should be amalgamated into one state bank with jobs guaranteed and employment provided for Anglo and INBS staff.  The boards should be sacked.  A new board under the democratic control of working people should be established including elected representatives from the workplace and representatives elected from society as a whole.

End the bank bailouts which could end up costing as much as €90 billion -  redirect this investment to job creation and protecting social services.    Bondholders and private lenders from the banking world should be given no guarantee of repayment.  The bank should gear its resources and future profits towards reducing mortgages (all mortgages should be brought in line with current house valuations), defending jobs and providing cheap credit to small business and individuals.

 

For an emergency programme of socially useful public works

Under capitalism schools are unbuilt, communities are left without centres, health, sport and youth facilities and masses of homes are uninsulated at the same time as huge numbers of construction workers languish on the dole.  End this contradiction by launching a socially useful programme of public works to employ construction workers at trade union rates of pay.

 

For a 35 hour week without loss of pay

It makes no sense to have people working 39 hours a week plus overtime at the same time that 450,000 people are on the dole.  Cut the working week to 35 hours without loss in pay and share out the work among the unemployed.  This would create 165,000 jobs.  It costs an average of €20,000 per annum in dole payments and lost income tax revenue to keep a person unemployed for a year.  Measures which take a quarter of a million people off the dole could save the taxpayer up to €5 billion and this money should be used to finance the emergency programme of socially useful public works.

 

For a progressive tax system

33,000 Irish millionaires own €133 billion wealth.  The taxation system should be changed, not by bringing the lowest paid into the tax net, but by forcing this elite to pay their fair share.  A hefty wealth tax should be introduced; tax loopholes for the rich abolished and corporation tax significantly increased.  No to property tax on the family home and to water charges.

 

Abolish sky-high pay rates

The Taoiseach is paid €228,000 per annum. A government minister is paid €191,000 per annum. A Supreme Court judge is paid €257,872 per annum.  These sky-high wages and others should be abolished along with perks such as the ministerial car fleet.  This should be done, not to “set an example” to encourage ordinary people to accept austerity, but to strike a blow at a viciously unequal capitalist society.

 

Reverse the cuts

Not only are massive cutbacks an assault on the “social wage”, striking hardest at working people and the poor, they are also severely deflationary with the potential to cripple the economy as pointed out recently by the ESRI.   Every €1 billion in cuts is estimated to shave €500 million off economic growth for the following year.  Use the new tax revenues accruing from the introduction of a progressive tax system to stop the flow of cutbacks and reverse all the cuts of recent years.

 

No to privatisation

The author of the An Bord Snip Nua report, right-wing economist Colm McCarthy, has been put in charge of a review of state assets and this is, no doubt, a prelude to proposals for privatisation on a massive scale.  It makes no sense whatsoever to privatise when the private sector is responsible for the crisis in the first place. We need more nurses, teachers, doctors andsocial workers. Public sector employment should be increased not cut!

 

End the rule of the market

Capitalism has failed spectacularly - 450,000 on the dole, a banking disaster and €15 billion in cuts on the way.  If capitalism cannot afford to provide jobs, decent living standards, decent social services and a future then the working class cannot afford capitalism.  This system needs to be ended.  Nationalise the banks, the building industry and all the major companies which dominate the economy under the democratic control of working people and use their profits to meet the needs of the people.

 

For a socialist plan of production, in Ireland and internationally

Gear the economy towards meeting the needs of ordinary people not the superprofits of the capitalist elite.  Match unused resources with social need  -  e.g. finishing “ghost estates” to tackle massive social housing waiting lists.  Instead of bailing out banks use state funding and state industry to end unemployment.

End the rule of capitalism internationally and the power of unelected financial “markets” to bully millions of people, and entire countries.  For a socialist Europe instead of a capitalist European Union.  Instead of the anarchy of the market with its catastrophic rollercoaster of boom and slump, plan the world economy rationally to end poverty, starvation, mass unemployment and vicious social inequality.

Carried from http://socialistparty.net/theory/547-the-socialist-alternative

Our Stormont Representatives and the Right to Education

On Monday 1^st November, the Stormont MLAs debated a motion brought forward by the SDLP on the issue of student fees. The motion called for the assembly to oppose the recommendations of the Browne review which recommends increasing the fees which universities are able to charge. The motion also opposed to moves to increase the interest rate paid by students on their loans. 

"That this Assembly notes the publication of the Browne and Stuart reports on the funding of third-level education; calls on the Minister for Employment and Learning and the Executive to ensure that publicly funded higher education is based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay; rejects any increase in the cost of student loans; and opposes the coalition Government’s plans to adopt the Browne proposal to remove the cap on student fees."

An amendment to the motion was proposed by Jonathon Bell of the DUP which completely diluted its effect  (deleting the words in bold above) and excluded any opposition to the Browne report. This amendment was eventually carried by a margin of 44 to 29 with both UUP and DUP voting for it and Sinn Fein, SDLP, Alliance, Green and ex-PUP MLAs voting against the increase in student fees. 

What is of immediate relevance to local voters is how the six local MLAs voted. Tom Elliott, Arlene Foster and Maurice Morrow all voted for the increase in student fees, Tommy Gallagher was alone in voting against them. Michelle Gildernew and Gerry McHugh didn’t bother to vote at all.

The Motion was Weak to Start off with

Of course the SDLP motion didn’t go any where near far enough, it reflected the opportunism of  that party in seeking to portray itself as a 'responsible' opposition to the onslaught on third level students. They seek to position themselves in relation to the growing campaigns of students and those in wider society who refuse to countenance a return to the situation where university education is the exclusive preserve of the wealthy. 

The motion did not even include the demand that university fees be entirely removed - which was the old position of both SDLP and Sinn Féin. There can be no justification for applying a cost to education; the  cost of free university education would easily be funded by just making sure that the richest people actually pay their fair share of taxes (most pay almost nothing at all as they pay sharp accountants and tax ‘advisers’ instead). The benefits of third-level qualifications in terms of the productive capacity of a country more than return the cost of providing it but that's not the way profit-makers see it.

Increasing the burden of a university education to the point where graduates will be saddled with a personal debt of about £30,000 and facing a world where finding a decent job is almost impossible is simply wrong and is clearly calculated to close the door to working class people going to university. Of course, the priorities of the ConDem government are not to educate large numbers of working class people who might then question the capitalist system and how it operates.

Local MLAs failed our children!

Notwithstanding this fundamental criticism of the SDLP motion, the performance of the local MLAs was abysmal: 5 out of 6 didn’t take the opportunity to oppose the Browne report and all three unionists effectively voted for cuts. I hope that readers of this blog will remember this in the next election. 

Working class people – both Catholic and Protestant - are not being represented at all at the Assembly. The UUP and DUP are competing to defend the interests of the well off; that’s their priority as they take their working class voters for granted. The performance of Sinn Fein, of whose 27 MLAs only 10 bothered to vote, was unforgivable considering that if all their MLAs had turned up to vote, the original motion would have been carried by a large margin and the Assembly would have at least on paper set its face against the attack on the right to education.

The Real Alternative

The voting in Stormont was perhaps largely an academic exercise, none of the Assembly parties has demonstrated any commitment to opposing the ConDem cuts in anything but words alone. The lessons of history are clear, only when people get organised and build strong popular campaigns will anti-working class policies be resisted. The parties in the Assembly share nothing with that agenda of change; their first and over-riding concern is to maintain their own electoral standing by playing on the sectarian divisions - the very thing that has been used repeatedly to weaken workers in struggle. Only by building cross-community campaigns involving workers, students and those in the wider community taking the brunt of the cuts can these neo-Thatcherite cuts be resisted.

The recent upsurge in protests involving students, the university occupations which are spreading across campuses in Britain, the growing industrial unrest and the the number of mass protests against the cuts are signs of that developing in our society. The recent crisis and how governments have dealt  with it has led to people seeing much more clearly today that the system is set up in the interests of those with billions not the ordinary citizen. All the political parties are just stooges to that agenda whether willingly or otherwise. 

Readers should consider that the fact that many parties have to be seen in the middle of those protests illustrates the political weakness of the professional class of politicians who will administrate neo-liberalism in our society. 

More and more people are understanding the need for fundamental change in society, let us re-dedicate ourselves to  reaching out to them and building towards the opposition that can bring that about.

What Price Education?



Blue Dots are Schools identified as threatened under the rules
Photo: Impartial Reporter



A recent report highlighted in the Impartial Reporter identified that 81% of Fermanagh's secondary schools (13 out of 16) and 47% of our primary schools (25 of 44) have enrollments below that necessary to meet Departmental guidelines.

The Departmental guidelines stipulate that rural primary schools should have at least 105 pupils and secondary schools an enrolment of over 500 aged between 11 and 16. Such guidelines are clearly prejudicial to rural communities and seek to accelerate the erosion of education of rural children in schools located close to their home.

Nowhere in the North of Ireland will the impact of the potential closures be greater than in West Fermanagh. The area stretches a distance of almost 40 miles in length and has only one secondary school, Brollagh, located between Belleek and Garrison. This school will never meet the enrolment criteria set out by the Department but that doesn't stop it offering children the highest quality education.

With the Department's blessing, the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools initiated a 'review' of Brollagh's future about 5 years ago and in the face of a strong local campaign the move to close the school was postphoned. The campaigners remain focussed on defending their school and understand that the fight is not over and that the Department and its agencies will return to try once again to close their school.

What made the Brollagh case particularly outrageous was the fact that the local community had originally funded the building of the school themselves as the Department did not offer 100% funding to maintained schools (unlike those of the state sector) when it was built. As such, the community in the area feels a strong sense of ownership over the school and it is used outside school hours for a wide variety of social and sporting activities.

The Impact of 'Rationalisation' in Fermanagh

The Department's policies are likely to see all rural secondary schools outside Enniskillen close. Children from as far away as Belleek and Roslea will be forced to travel upwards to an hour to schools located in the county town. And as anyone who has ever visited Fermanagh knows, our county town has serious congestion problems.

The approach taken to apply minimum enrolments which are more appropriate to urban areas to rural ones will centralise schooling in Enniskillen thereby further aggravating the traffic congestion in the town. Children's well-being seems to be the last thing considered as they will be forced to travel long distances leaving homes early in the morning to go to schools which are arguably no better than those which were originally in rural areas.

The Impact on Rural Communities

As bad as the Department's rulings will be for children attending secondary schools, the impact of a closure of 47% of primary schools would devastate rural communities across the county.

The social fabric of local communities rests on the pillars of the local church, the football or soccer club, the school, local shops and the village pub. The loss of a village's primary school can be devastating as the social hub disappears for parents who interact after leaving their children in the morning and who chat when collecting them. When a primary school closes it is normal for playgroups and afterschools to follow suit as parents like to leave children off at one place.

There will be huge resistance to any moves to close village primary schools yet this is precisely what is threatening our communities. But it must be remembered that the rules stipulating minimum enrolment targets were set before the latest wave of cutbacks - how much more pressure will be exerted in this 'era of austerity'.

Young people across Fermanagh are finding the doors to third-level education being shut in their faces as they face a massive hike in fees and a concurrent increase in student loan interest rates. The County's higher educational institution, Fermanagh College, was subsumed as one campus of the Omagh-focussed Southwest College with a significant downgrading of the management jobs offered in Enniskillen and there has been a dramatic reduction in the provision of educational courses held in rural villages. In this context, the assault on rural primary and secondary education reflects just the latest failure of politicians in Stormont to understand the realities of rural life and to appreciate the growing anger among the communities in Fermanagh.

Absence of Planning - Survival of the Fittest

The Minister for Education, Caitriona Ruane, has become a byword for a political class which has lost the run of itself. They seek election every four years but are invisible for the remainder, that is absenting their propensity to be found at the front row of photo-opportunities in the local press at every governmental announcement.

There is no political leadership representing the interests of local communities. The absence of agreement in the Stormont Executive caused by the negotiated mutual-veto held by both the DUP and Sinn Féin has resulted in a situation where schools are left to fend for themselves and their students in the absence of clarity on the way forwards.

In this situation, schools located in populated and wealthy areas will be safe but those located in rural and poorer areas will find themselves facing the 'axe' of budget deficits. Politicians who are too astute to be associated with mass school closures choose a gradual and chaotic demise of rural education as school after school will close due to budgetary pressures and the decline in the numbers of families able to find sufficient employment to live in rural areas.

The excuse is that bigger schools will offer children more 'choice' of subjects offered - mirroring the false 'consumer' choice afforded by the market. But rural families do not want 'choice' they want decent education in the core subjects which is provided locally so that their children don't go to school already tired from long journeys. They want schools which are close to home and which retain some of the calm tranquility of rural life.

If parents in Fermanagh want to save rural education, it is time to act and get organised. As a start we need to link campaigns trying to save different schools to prevent the politicians from playing one against another or one sector against the other. Only when the right to and the value of rural education is recognised can we be confident of a future for rural communities.

Sinn Féin’s ‘Alternative’

Sinn Féin recently published its plan for the cuts which offered a few populist measures as window-dressing e.g. a marginal pay-cut for MLAs, reduced use of business consultants and slashing bonuses to hospital consultants but aside from these few positive policies, the document masked the party’s 180˚ u-turn on its previous opposition to the cuts:

 “We fundamentally disagree with the Tory government’s slash and burn approach to the economic crisis, but we are nevertheless forced to deal with the consequences of its approach.”

Sinn Féin plans to quietly administrate the cuts, safeguard business interests and slash workers wages hoping that big businesses will eventually be attracted to set up here and exploit local workers. Meanwhile, they will make a big play of their ‘opposition’ locally and hope to prevent any political fallout.

Regressive Taxes

The document proposes a number of regressive taxes e.g. on plastic bags (raising £4 million) and on mobile phone masts. The latter will simply result in phone companies ‘passing on’ the costs to consumers and in rural areas masts may be removed altogether as they will not be ‘profitable’.

Instead of shilly-shallying around the telecoms giants, the industry should be nationalised and democratised to ensure all profits are either reinvested in improving local infrastructure or to supporting other public services.

A Financial Services Mentality

The party has adopted the mindset of financial capitalism, their vision is for “financial engineering instruments...to help regions and cities meet their investment needs"!

They propose a bank bond to pay for private sector investment. This policy will guarantee massive profits for the bankers at the very time when working people are demanding that they be nationalised and run in the interests of the people.

The party also proposes the privatisation of future Housing Executive rent payments through creating a ‘special financial vehicle’ to ‘take advantage’ of accounting rules that allow a ‘body outside government to borrow’. The party appears to have forgotten that this was precisely why the 1990s Tory government implemented this ‘off-balance sheet’ accounting rule in the first place. Since then it has been instrumental in driving the widespread use of PFI with the aim of creating lucrative returns for speculators – something Sinn Féin appear to have no problem with.

But the speculators who lend money to the Executive will require annual payments for inflation, interest, so-called risk, as well as their profits. Surely a better deal would be secured if new social housing was simply paid for with increased taxation?

Lower Taxes for Big Business

Sinn Fein’s talks up their demand for ‘fiscal powers...to tackle the fiscal crisis. Without the necessary tools we are simply reduced to redistributing a smaller pot of money’. But before you assume that the party is seeking to increase the burden of tax to help protect public services you might notice this hidden sentence:

“The Tory party has articulated a public position around designating the north as an enterprise zone with the ability to vary [read lower] corporation tax rates. Sinn Fein believes that the British government should implement these proposals as part of a Budget Settlement.”

Far from using fiscal powers to protect the public services and workers from the devastation of the cuts, Sinn Féin seeks to lower business taxes even further!! The cost: £500 million a year to be paid for by further cuts and more stealth taxes.

It is an irony of history that after 30 years of divisive and fruitless struggle, Sinn Féin in government content themselves to implementing cuts that Margaret Thatcher could only have dreamed about.

Socialists must seek to build a cross-community opposition to the cuts involving workers and those affected in the wider community – that’s the only real alternative to the Tories in Westminster and in Stormont.

Protest against right-wing mag Agenda NI

The ICTU have called a protest outside the AGENDA NI conference being held in Belfast tomorrow morning. Agenda NI is the magazine of the rich and business leaders in Northern Ireland who claim that the public sector is too big and that there has to be cutbacks. 

Protest: 26th October, Grosvenor House Conference Centre, 5 Glengall Street, Belfast 8.30am

Fermanagh Trades Council Meeting Against the Cuts Tonight!

I hope to see some of the readers of this blog at tonight's meeting on the Cuts in Enniskillen Library at 7pm; hopefully a chance to discuss these issues and build a campaign against the Tory cuts and those who will administrate them from Stormont.

Stop WELB cuts to our Children's Education!

Like most other Governmental bodies, the WELB have placed a moratorium on the recruitment of staff as a means to met the stringent efficiency gains agreed by the Stormont parties in their three-year comprehensive spending review (May 2008- April 2011). The impact of this has been to place an ever greater burden on those staff remaining on to provide front-line services.

The WELB’s ban on recruitment has now impacted on music tuition for children attending local primary schools across Fermanagh. Following on from two tutors taking maternity leave, a third tutor in the county has been made redundant in a decision which clearly is geared towards running down this service in the future. As a result there is now no tutor to provide lessons to children anywhere in the county – this decision has undermined a longstanding commitment to musical education at primary school level.